Online courses directory (684)

This course analyzes issues associated with the implementation of higher-level programming languages. Topics covered include: fundamental concepts, functions, and structures of compilers, the interaction of theory and practice, and using tools in building software. The course includes a multi-person project on compiler design and implementation.

This course features a rigorous introduction to modern cryptography, with an emphasis on the fundamental cryptographic primitives of public-key encryption, digital signatures, pseudo-random number generation, and basic protocols and their computational complexity requirements.

This course teaches the principles and analysis of electromechanical systems. Students will develop analytical techniques for predicting device and system interaction characteristics as well as learn to design major classes of electric machines. Problems used in the course are intended to strengthen understanding of the phenomena and interactions in electromechanics, and include examples from current research.

Following a brief classroom discussion of relevant principles, each student in this course completes the paper design of several advanced circuits such as multiplexers, sample-and-holds, gain-controlled amplifiers, analog multipliers, digital-to-analog or analog-to-digital converters, and power amplifiers. One of each student's designs is presented to the class, and one may be built and evaluated. Associated laboratory assignments emphasize the use of modern analog building blocks. This course is worth 12 Engineering Design Points.

In 6.635, topics covered include: special relativity, electrodynamics of moving media, waves in dispersive media, microstrip integrated circuits, quantum optics, remote sensing, radiative transfer theory, scattering by rough surfaces, effective permittivities, random media, Green's functions for planarly layered media, integral equations in electromagnetics, method of moments, time domain method of moments, EM waves in periodic structures: photonic crystals and negative refraction.

This course covers concepts and techniques for the design and implementation of large software systems that can be adapted to uses not anticipated by the designer. Applications include compilers, computer-algebra systems, deductive systems, and some artificial intelligence applications. Topics include combinators, generic operations, pattern matching, pattern-directed invocation, rule systems, backtracking, dependencies, indeterminacy, memoization, constraint propagation, and incremental refinement. Substantial weekly programming assignments are an integral part of the subject.

There will be extensive programming assignments, using MIT/GNU Scheme. Students should have significant programming experience in Scheme, Common Lisp, Haskell, CAML or some other "functional" language.

This research-oriented course will focus on algebraic and computational techniques for optimization problems involving polynomial equations and inequalities with particular emphasis on the connections with semidefinite optimization. The course will develop in a parallel fashion several algebraic and numerical approaches to polynomial systems, with a view towards methods that simultaneously incorporate both elements. We will study both the complex and real cases, developing techniques of general applicability, and stressing convexity-based ideas, complexity results, and efficient implementations. Although we will use examples from several engineering areas, particular emphasis will be given to those arising from systems and control applications.

6.374 examines the device and circuit level optimization of digital building blocks. Topics covered include: MOS device models including Deep Sub-Micron effects; circuit design styles for logic, arithmetic and sequential blocks; estimation and minimization of energy consumption; interconnect models and parasitics; device sizing and logical effort; timing issues (clock skew and jitter) and active clock distribution techniques; memory architectures, circuits (sense amplifiers) and devices; testing of integrated circuits. The course employs extensive use of circuit layout and SPICE in design projects and software labs.

This is a graduate-level introduction to mathematics of information theory. We will cover both classical and modern topics, including information entropy, lossless data compression, binary hypothesis testing, channel coding, and lossy data compression.

This course on software engineering covers design and implementation of medium-scale software systems, using web applications as a platform. In the course, students learn the fundamentals of structuring a web application and writing modular code, with an emphasis on conceptual design to achieve clarity, simplicity, and modularity. Topics also include functional programming, relational databases, and security.

6.857 Network and Computer Security is an upper-level undergraduate, first-year graduate course on network and computer security. It fits within the Computer Systems and Architecture Engineering concentration.

6.728 is offered under the department's "Devices, Circuits, and Systems" concentration. The course covers concepts in elementary quantum mechanics and statistical physics, introduces applied quantum physics, and emphasizes an experimental basis for quantum mechanics. Concepts covered include: Schrodinger's equation applied to the free particle, tunneling, the harmonic oscillator, and hydrogen atom, variational methods, Fermi-Dirac, Bose-Einstein, and Boltzmann distribution functions, and simple models for metals, semiconductors, and devices such as electron microscopes, scanning tunneling microscope, thermonic emitters, atomic force microscope, and others.

This course provides a phenomenological approach to superconductivity, with emphasis on superconducting electronics. Topics include: electrodynamics of superconductors, London's model, flux quantization, Josephson Junctions, superconducting quantum devices, equivalent circuits, high-speed superconducting electronics, and quantized circuits for quantum computing. The course also provides an overview of type II superconductors, critical magnetic fields, pinning, the critical state model, superconducting materials, and microscopic theory of superconductivity.

This course introduces students to the basic knowledge representation, problem solving, and learning methods of artificial intelligence. Upon completion of 6.034, students should be able to develop intelligent systems by assembling solutions to concrete computational problems; understand the role of knowledge representation, problem solving, and learning in intelligent-system engineering; and appreciate the role of problem solving, vision, and language in understanding human intelligence from a computational perspective.

6.270 is a hands-on, learn-by-doing class, in which participants design and build a robot that will play in a competition at the end of January. The goal for the students is to design a machine that will be able to navigate its way around the playing surface, recognize other opponents, and manipulate game objects. Unlike the machines in Design and Manufacturing I (2.007), 6.270 robots are totally autonomous, so once a round begins, there is no human intervention.

The goal of 6.270 is to teach students about robotic design by giving them the hardware, software, and information they need to design, build, and debug their own robot. The subject includes concepts and applications that are related to various MIT classes (e.g. 6.001, 6.002, 6.004, and 2.007), though there are no formal prerequisites for 6.270.

This course is an introduction to quantum computational complexity theory, the study of the fundamental capabilities and limitations of quantum computers. Topics include complexity classes, lower bounds, communication complexity, proofs, advice, and interactive proof systems in the quantum world. The objective is to bring students to the research frontier.

6.453 Quantum Optical Communication is one of a collection of MIT classes that deals with aspects of an emerging field known as quantum information science. This course covers Quantum Optics, Single-Mode and Two-Mode Quantum Systems, Multi-Mode Quantum Systems, Nonlinear Optics, and Quantum System Theory.

This course provides a brisk, challenging, and dynamic treatment of differential and integral calculus, with an emphasis on conceptual understanding and applications to the engineering, physical, and social sciences.

SI 508 has been taught in various forms from 2006 to 2008 to master

This course will serve as a two-week aggressively gentle introduction to programming for those students who lack background in the field. Specifically targeted at students with little or no programming experience, the course seeks to reach students who intend to take 6.001 and feel they would struggle because they lack the necessary background. The main focus of the subject will be acquiring programming experience: instruction in programming fundamentals coupled with lots of practice problems. Lots of programming required, but lots of support provided.